Ironworker Stephen Sweeney’s union card didn’t offer him much protection from the angry throngs of public workers who flooded the State House grounds three years ago.

Chris Pedota/staff photographer

Assemblywoman Bonnie Watson Coleman, center, speaking Thursday to Communications Workers of America members at a rally near the War Memorial in Trenton.

In protests that spring, Swee­ney, the Senate president and top elected Democrat, was vilified as a traitor for teaming up with Governor Christie, the conservative Republican, to enact a landmark law that forced teachers, firefighters, police and government workers to contribute significantly more to their pensions and health care. For many workers, it meant a steep cut in pay.

In their eyes, Sweeney traded in the work clothes with the union label for the empty suit of a power-hungry Trenton insider. Sweeney’s bond with rank-and-file Demo­crats seemed ruptured for good.

And on Thursday, the unions returned to Trenton to aim their anger at Christie and his plan to cut $2.4 billion in scheduled payments to the state pension system to help close a gaping hole in the state budget. This time Sweeney was not a target, but a new ally. Christie’s plan has forced Sweeney and the public employee unions back into a wary alliance.

The unions need Sweeney’s help to halt Christie’s plan, and Sweeney is eager to oblige. And Sweeney, a likely candidate for governor in 2017, may not have much choice.

Restoring the pension fund payments would help Sweeney restore trust with public employee unions, whose support will be vital in a crowded Democratic primary. It could turn ambivalent rank-and-file into animated ground troops on primary day. Public employee unions are also suing Christie to stop the cuts.

The public employee unions invested heavily in last fall’s legislative races to help preserve the Democratic majorities in both the Senate and Assembly. Now they are leaning on Sweeney to preserve those pension fund payments, and most are willing to forget the bitter experience of three years ago.

“There is the old saying, ‘What have you done for me lately?’Ÿ” said Wendell Steinhauer, president of the New Jersey Education Association, the state teachers union. “Well, he’s doing a lot for me lately.”

But Hetty Rosenstein, the leader of the Communications Workers of America, the largest public state worker union, said stopping the proposed cuts will be a defining moment for Sweeney’s relationship with the union.

“I think it is critical for him to maintain his credibility,” she said Thursday, minutes after blasting Christie’s proposal at a rally on the State House steps.

Sweeney’s concern goes beyond just placating public employee unions. While pension and benefit reforms were hailed as Christie’s signature “bipartisan” achievement, Sweeney was also hoping to trumpet them on the campaign trail. The tough-love, defy-all-odds measures were supposed to put the debt-plagued New Jersey pension system back on the road to sustainability by 2018. Workers would pay their share, but so, too, finally would the state, which had skipped or skimped on its annual contribution since the 1990s.

Pension reform was going to be Sweeney’s calling card to the vast, unaffiliated suburban middle class, proof that the veteran union leader out of Gloucester County would not be a pawn for organized labor if elected governor. It also helped to label him as a centrist Demo­crat. And it would distinguish him from competitors, like Steve Fulop, the up-and-coming mayor of Jersey City, or Assemblyman John Wisniewski, the co-leader of the George Washington Bridge lane-closure panel; or an outsider like Philip Murphy, the former Goldman Sachs executive and ambassador to Germany, who is also exploring a run.

But if Christie’s planned cuts prevail, the state will fall behind the seven-year schedule of annual payments, which was expected to grow to $4 billion by 2018. The pension fund’s sea of red ink — the value of the fund is now $46 billion short of what’s needed to cover projected obligations — will continue to rise and the threat of insolvency will no longer be an abstraction. Instead of bragging about the law, candidate Sweeney might be forced to avoid mentioning it.

In an interview Thursday, Sweeney said he has had “healthy conversations” with several unions over the past month to halt the cuts, but acknowledged that “the hard feelings of 2011 have not gone away.”

Sweeney also denied that a possible 2017 campaign is prompting his hard line on Christie’s planned cuts. He said he is motivated by anger at Christie and accused Christie of reneging on their deal to restock the pension system with an annual infusion of cash. Sweeney insisted that he is angered at Christie, whom he accused of reneging on the complicated deal.

“No one made him sign it,” Sweeney said. “He promised to pay the pension and now he’s looking for the easiest way out.”

Christie says he has no choice and no “Plan B” for patching a $2.7 billion budget shortfall — $1 billion in the current fiscal year, and $1.7 billion projected for fiscal 2015 — before midnight, June 30, the constitutional deadline for a balanced budget. Christie has expressed confidence that the courts will uphold his planned cuts. If the unions prevail in court, that will force Sweeney and the Democrats to come up with a plan to cover the payment — and fast. Sweeney has called for raising income taxes on high earners, but Christie has vetoed that measure three times, and the Republican lawmakers are not going to buck him by joining an override vote.

The idea of forcing Christie to bend on his no-tax pledge by forcing a shutdown of state government is also not a feasible option — governors typically come out |the victors in budget shutdowns. Sweeney, who threatened a shutdown over the issue in March, has since backed away.

Covering the cost of the pension payments by making steep spending cuts to towns, schools and hospitals would have no support.

One possibility would be to possibly renegotiate the payment schedule from the current seven years to eight. That would effectively delay the payments, but at least keep a schedule set in law. The law could include a proviso that requires any unanticipated revenue to be pumped into the pension system.

That would require Sweeney to set aside his anger and cut another deal with Christie. It’s a deal that he’d also have to sell to the Assembly and sell to the unions, which are not really in the mood right now to negotiate with Christie. And they remain wary of Sweeney. After all, he was the fierce target of their attacks in 2011.

“We expect Senator Sweeney and the rest of the Democratic leadership to abide by this law,” Rosenstein said.

Assemblywoman Bonnie Watson Coleman, center, speaking Thursday to Communications Workers of America members at a rally near the War Memorial in Trenton.

By Charles Stile

Record Columnist |

The Record

Ironworker Stephen Sweeney’s union card didn’t offer him much protection from the angry throngs of public workers who flooded the State House grounds three years ago.

In protests that spring, Swee­ney, the Senate president and top elected Democrat, was vilified as a traitor for teaming up with Governor Christie, the conservative Republican, to enact a landmark law that forced teachers, firefighters, police and government workers to contribute significantly more to their pensions and health care. For many workers, it meant a steep cut in pay.

In their eyes, Sweeney traded in the work clothes with the union label for the empty suit of a power-hungry Trenton insider. Sweeney’s bond with rank-and-file Demo­crats seemed ruptured for good.

And on Thursday, the unions returned to Trenton to aim their anger at Christie and his plan to cut $2.4 billion in scheduled payments to the state pension system to help close a gaping hole in the state budget. This time Sweeney was not a target, but a new ally. Christie’s plan has forced Sweeney and the public employee unions back into a wary alliance.

The unions need Sweeney’s help to halt Christie’s plan, and Sweeney is eager to oblige. And Sweeney, a likely candidate for governor in 2017, may not have much choice.

Restoring the pension fund payments would help Sweeney restore trust with public employee unions, whose support will be vital in a crowded Democratic primary. It could turn ambivalent rank-and-file into animated ground troops on primary day. Public employee unions are also suing Christie to stop the cuts.

The public employee unions invested heavily in last fall’s legislative races to help preserve the Democratic majorities in both the Senate and Assembly. Now they are leaning on Sweeney to preserve those pension fund payments, and most are willing to forget the bitter experience of three years ago.

“There is the old saying, ‘What have you done for me lately?’Ÿ” said Wendell Steinhauer, president of the New Jersey Education Association, the state teachers union. “Well, he’s doing a lot for me lately.”

But Hetty Rosenstein, the leader of the Communications Workers of America, the largest public state worker union, said stopping the proposed cuts will be a defining moment for Sweeney’s relationship with the union.

“I think it is critical for him to maintain his credibility,” she said Thursday, minutes after blasting Christie’s proposal at a rally on the State House steps.

Sweeney’s concern goes beyond just placating public employee unions. While pension and benefit reforms were hailed as Christie’s signature “bipartisan” achievement, Sweeney was also hoping to trumpet them on the campaign trail. The tough-love, defy-all-odds measures were supposed to put the debt-plagued New Jersey pension system back on the road to sustainability by 2018. Workers would pay their share, but so, too, finally would the state, which had skipped or skimped on its annual contribution since the 1990s.

Pension reform was going to be Sweeney’s calling card to the vast, unaffiliated suburban middle class, proof that the veteran union leader out of Gloucester County would not be a pawn for organized labor if elected governor. It also helped to label him as a centrist Demo­crat. And it would distinguish him from competitors, like Steve Fulop, the up-and-coming mayor of Jersey City, or Assemblyman John Wisniewski, the co-leader of the George Washington Bridge lane-closure panel; or an outsider like Philip Murphy, the former Goldman Sachs executive and ambassador to Germany, who is also exploring a run.

But if Christie’s planned cuts prevail, the state will fall behind the seven-year schedule of annual payments, which was expected to grow to $4 billion by 2018. The pension fund’s sea of red ink — the value of the fund is now $46 billion short of what’s needed to cover projected obligations — will continue to rise and the threat of insolvency will no longer be an abstraction. Instead of bragging about the law, candidate Sweeney might be forced to avoid mentioning it.

In an interview Thursday, Sweeney said he has had “healthy conversations” with several unions over the past month to halt the cuts, but acknowledged that “the hard feelings of 2011 have not gone away.”

Sweeney also denied that a possible 2017 campaign is prompting his hard line on Christie’s planned cuts. He said he is motivated by anger at Christie and accused Christie of reneging on their deal to restock the pension system with an annual infusion of cash. Sweeney insisted that he is angered at Christie, whom he accused of reneging on the complicated deal.

“No one made him sign it,” Sweeney said. “He promised to pay the pension and now he’s looking for the easiest way out.”

Christie says he has no choice and no “Plan B” for patching a $2.7 billion budget shortfall — $1 billion in the current fiscal year, and $1.7 billion projected for fiscal 2015 — before midnight, June 30, the constitutional deadline for a balanced budget. Christie has expressed confidence that the courts will uphold his planned cuts. If the unions prevail in court, that will force Sweeney and the Democrats to come up with a plan to cover the payment — and fast. Sweeney has called for raising income taxes on high earners, but Christie has vetoed that measure three times, and the Republican lawmakers are not going to buck him by joining an override vote.

The idea of forcing Christie to bend on his no-tax pledge by forcing a shutdown of state government is also not a feasible option — governors typically come out |the victors in budget shutdowns. Sweeney, who threatened a shutdown over the issue in March, has since backed away.

Covering the cost of the pension payments by making steep spending cuts to towns, schools and hospitals would have no support.

One possibility would be to possibly renegotiate the payment schedule from the current seven years to eight. That would effectively delay the payments, but at least keep a schedule set in law. The law could include a proviso that requires any unanticipated revenue to be pumped into the pension system.

That would require Sweeney to set aside his anger and cut another deal with Christie. It’s a deal that he’d also have to sell to the Assembly and sell to the unions, which are not really in the mood right now to negotiate with Christie. And they remain wary of Sweeney. After all, he was the fierce target of their attacks in 2011.

“We expect Senator Sweeney and the rest of the Democratic leadership to abide by this law,” Rosenstein said.